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The Russian-Ukrainian conflict spawned a high-intensity war that shattered decades of peace in Europe. The use of drones and social media elevates open-source intelligence as a critical strategic asset. However, information from these sources is sporadic, difficult to confirm, and prone to manipulation. Here, we use open-access spaceborne remote sensing data to probe the damage to infrastructure on and off the frontline at the city, region, and country-wide scales in Ukraine. Nighttime light data and Synthetic Aperture Radar images reveal widespread blackout and unveil the destruction of battleground cities, offering contrasted perspectives on the impact of the conflict. Optical satellite images capture extensive flooding along the Dnipro River in the aftermath of the breach of the Kakhovka dam. Leveraging visible, near-infrared, and microwave satellite data, we bring to light disruption of human activities, havoc in the environment, and the annihilation of entire cities during the protracted conflict. Open-source remote sensing can offer objective information about the nature and extent of devastation during military conflicts. 

Abstract We study the Bergman metric of a finite ball quotient $$\mathbb{B}^n/\Gamma $$, where $$n \geq 2$$ and $$\Gamma \subseteq{\operatorname{Aut}}({\mathbb{B}}^n)$$ is a finite, fixed point free, abelian group. We prove that this metric is Kähler–Einstein if and only if $$\Gamma $$ is trivial, that is, when the ball quotient $$\mathbb{B}^n/\Gamma $$ is the unit ball $${\mathbb{B}}^n$$ itself. As a consequence, we characterize the unit ball among normal Stein spaces with isolated singularities and abelian fundamental groups in terms of the existence of a Bergman–Einstein metric.